Spirit Soil is putting spirits into your garden beds. With the Hoe in hand, right-click or R opens the SOIL window, where you choose a spirit and a strength. From then on, every bed the hoe works is given that spirit, and you pay spirits for each bed. The spirit changes how the crop in that bed grows: Earth makes it finer, Wind makes it faster, Water keeps it wet, and Fire protects it.
CONTENTS
The SOIL window
The window has two pages, SOIL and PAIRINGS.
- YOUR HOE: how strong your hoe can go and how many spirits it holds. If your hoe works more than one bed at a time, you can switch between the whole patch and 1 bed here.
- THE SPIRIT: click one of the four spirits to choose it. With a bronze hoe or finer, click a second to pair them; click a chosen one again to take it out, or NONE to stop. Below are the three strengths, LIGHT, RICH and DEEP, and what one bed and one stroke will cost.
- WHAT IT DOES: what your choice does, and what you get back at harvest.
Your choice stays until you change it. While it is on, a small tag over your head shows the spirit, the strength and the cost of a bed.
What your hoe allows
| Hoe | Spirits | Strongest |
|---|---|---|
| Stone | 1 | LIGHT |
| Bronze | up to 2 | RICH |
| Steel | up to 2 | DEEP |
Putting spirits in a bed
With a spirit chosen, every click or F of the hoe gives the spirit to each tilled bed in its patch: empty beds, beds you sow with that stroke, and beds where something is already growing (the crop is left alone). The hoe skips a bed that already has the same spirits at the same strength or stronger, and a bed with a dead crop in it. Each bed is paid for in turn; if you run short, the hoe does as many beds as you can pay for and NOT ENOUGH SPIRITS shows over the patch.
A bed keeps its spirit:
- until its crop is harvested,
- for 3 harvests, for a crop that fruits again (like Strawberries),
- for 4 days, if nothing is growing in it.
The bed's soil shows a tint of its spirit's colour, with motes rising from it.
What each spirit does
| Spirit | LIGHT | RICH | DEEP |
|---|---|---|---|
| Earth | +6 to its grade score (out of 100) | +12 to its grade score | +20 to its grade score; Heirloom needs the weather only 70% to its liking (85% otherwise) |
| Wind | Grows 25% faster | Grows 50% faster | Grows 100% faster (twice as fast); a crop that fruits again fruits again twice as soon |
| Water | Dries 3 times slower; soaked as it is given the spirit | Never dries; soaked as it is given the spirit | Never dries; keeps the 4 beds beside it wet; its crop gets back health 50% faster |
| Fire | Frost can't harm it | Also: snow doesn't stop it, storms don't bend it, visitors keep off | Also: sun crops grow at night at 60% of their daytime pace; it glows, lighting the dark round it |
Grade score is explained on Crop Grades.
Cost
Each bed costs this many of each spirit you chose. Two spirits cost both.
| Strength | Each spirit, a bed | In its tide |
|---|---|---|
| LIGHT | 4 | 3 |
| RICH | 10 | 8 |
| DEEP | 25 | 19 |
Tides
Each spirit has a tide, when it costs 25% fewer spirits (rounded up). TIDE -25% shows over its well in the window.
- Fire: around midday.
- Water: while it rains.
- Wind: in a storm or a strong wind.
- Earth: at night.
At harvest
- Spirits back: some of the spirits you paid come back out of the soil, by the crop's grade: 30% (Poor), 50% (Plain), 70% (Fine), 90% (Prime), 120% (Heirloom). For a crop that fruits again, a third comes back at each of its 3 harvests.
- Spices: at RICH, each spirit in the bed has a 10% chance to give its spice; at DEEP, 25%.
- Attuned seeds: at RICH or DEEP, the seeds that come back are attuned to the bed's first spirit, one strength lower (see Seeds).
- Spirit Bloom: at DEEP, if you reap it while the bed's first spirit is in its tide, there is a 2% chance of a Spirit Bloom: the crop comes up Heirloom and gives 40 spirits of that element.
Attuned seeds
Seeds from RICH soil come back attuned at LIGHT; seeds from DEEP soil come back attuned at RICH. When you sow, attuned seeds of that crop go in first, strongest first, and give their bed that spirit at that strength for free (unless the bed already has a stronger one). The SEEDS card shows how many attuned seeds you have.
Pairings
Two spirits in the same bed, both at RICH or DEEP, wake a pairing as well as doing what each does alone.
| Pairing | Spirits | What it does |
|---|---|---|
| Loam Heart | Earth + Water | 1 more of what comes up, at every harvest. |
| Seedgale | Earth + Wind | At harvest its seeds blow into up to 3 empty tilled beds within 2 tiles and sow them, free. |
| Hearthbed | Earth + Fire | Snow and frost do nothing to it, and the weather counts as at least 85% to its liking. |
| Drizzle Drift | Water + Wind | Each morning it waters the 8 beds round it. |
| Warm Rain | Fire + Water | Reaping it heals 10% of your health and gives back 10% of your stamina; raw food gives 25% more stamina for 5 minutes after. |
| Ember Drift | Fire + Wind | After its harvest it replants itself from its own seed, free, and keeps its spirits for one more crop. |
Spices
Spices come only from RICH and DEEP spirit soil, one for each element. At the cooking pot, put one in the SPICE well beside the skillet and it goes into the dish (one spice for each dish you cook). See Cooking.
| Spice | From | In a dish |
|---|---|---|
| Emberpepper | Fire | You can't be chilled while it lasts, and you hit 10% harder. |
| Dewsalt | Water | It heals 50% more (or 10% of your health, if it wouldn't heal). |
| Stoneroot | Earth | 10% chance to avoid a hit while it lasts, and Defense XP half the dish's. |
| Galeleaf | Wind | Your hops reach 10% further while it lasts, and 10% more XP from the dish. |
Tips
- Water at RICH is the easy way to never water a bed again until its harvest.
- Earth at DEEP makes Heirloom crops much easier to grow.
- Pay in each spirit's tide to save a quarter: Fire at midday, Earth at night.
- Fire at RICH or DEEP keeps visitors and storms off, so a Scarecrow isn't needed.
